Insulating material is typically applied to motor stators by means of "trickling" the material onto the stators in order to ensure that the material is applied to particular surfaces and not applied to other surfaces, such as the bore and the outer diameter of the laminations. The stator is usually supported by a mandrel and rotated during the application of the insulating material. The stator can be supported at an angle with respect to the horizontal in order to said the flow of insulating material through the slots in the motor stator. Rotation of the stator during the application of the insulating material facilitates penetration of the material into the motor windings while minimizing waste. After the insulating material has been applied to the stator, the stator is usually heated by passing current through the windings or by placing the stator in a heating oven to cure the insulating material. From the foregoing, it is apparent that the aforementioned method is not only time consuming but is rather costly since it requires the heating of the motor stator to cure the insulating material.
Another approach for insulating motor stators permits curing of the insulating material at room temperature by adding a catalyst to the resin material which is utilized as the insulating material. The use of such catalyst permits the resin material to cure at room temperature in a relatively short period of time, typically between five to ten minutes after the application of the resin material and catalyst to a rotor or motor stator. This latter approach has many advantages over the prior art in that it does not require the use of a heating oven or the passage of current through the motor winding to cure the insulating material applied to same. A distinct disadvantage of this latter approach is that the amount of catalyst (MEK peroxide) that is utilized in relation to the amount of resin material employed is extremely critical. The ratio of catalyst to resin is typically in the range of 1:50 to 1:100. Thus, precision metering of the amount of catalyst and resin material is required, and apparatus presently available does not provide such precision metering. In addition, it has been found that the catalyst can produce oxygen gas if the dispensing apparatus is "shutdown" for a period of time. Such gas produces voids in the passageways for the catalyst, thus preventing the mixing of the exact amount of the catalyst to the resin material. The foregoing oxygen gas must be purged from the system in order to ensure that the precise amount of catalyst is added to the resin material. The dispensing apparatus presently available does not provide for the purging of such gas.
Because of the foregoing, it has become desirable to develop apparatus which provides precision metering of the catalyst and the resin material to permit curing of same at room temperature and which permits the purging of any oxyge gas which is formed in the catalyst passageways within the apparatus if the apparatus has been "shut-down" for a period of time.